The House’s version of the president’s five-year plan seeks to establish a new schedule for 29 lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, Mid-Atlantic, Southern Pacific and the Arctic. It also moves to open offshore Virginia to drilling, seeking for those lease sales to begin in 2013.

“The House Natural Resources Committee projects that the bill, if enacted, will generate $600 million in revenues and create tens of thousands of American jobs,” Brady’s release said.

“President Obama has proposed the worst offshore drilling lease plan since Jimmy Carter. Americans didn’t like President Carter’s gas lines, and they don’t like President Obama’s energy policies,” Brady, R- The Woodlands, said. “We should be producing American energy and creating American jobs, not closing off 85% of our offshore energy resources.”

The Congressional Research Service, Congress’ non-partisan think tank, has criticized the Obama plan in a report that states the president’s proposal represents the lowest number of lease sales offered since 1980.

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Reader Comment of the Day

“It is interesting that anytime a Democrat wants to further curtail Americans’ liberties, it is the Republicans who must compromise. That is precisely the type of thinking over the past 40 years that has brought the country to the brink.”